Coalition youth mental health investment is good news
I welcome the Coalition’s announcement that if elected it will invest $1.5bn over 4 years in improving supports for young Australians with mental-ill health.
The announcement is good news for Australian families as it shows leadership and seriousness of purpose in addressing the increasing burden of mental ill-health on Australian family life.
The investment plan would prevent disability and unnecessary suffering through early intervention and upstream community investment as well as support recovery from mental illness through therapeutic forms of residential care. Correctly implemented, this policy would save lives, ensure young lives are not stunted or derailed, and stem the tide of Australians with untreated mental illnesses flowing to our emergency departments, onto our streets and into our prisons.
This investment plan is focused on young people who are age group most affected by mental ill-health. By making such an investment significant pressure would be removed from the mental health system more generally, which would create capacity for improvements in services for other age groups, who also need more and better services.
I spoke to Tony Abbott today to welcome this announcement, which represents a much needed down payment towards the reconstruction of Australia’s mental health system and the creation of a 21st Century approach to mental health care in Australia.
This announcement would be a welcome first step towards what should be a progressive scaling up of the mental health system so that all Australians have the same equity in access and quality in mental health care as they do in physical health care. There will need to be several additional steps over the next decade to achieve this goal.
As of today both the Australian Greens and the Coalition have significant investment plans for mental health. I now hope that the Australian Government will soon announce its own investment plan for mental health – and that this plan will also demonstrate a real commitment to improving the lives of Australians with mental ill-health and their families.